Learn Something New Everyday Thread

I've been wanting to do a thread like this for a long time, but it's always slipped my mind, until now.

You ever have moments where you find out something you didn't know before, and you find yourself thinking, "Huh, learn something new everyday"? Yeah, here's my latest one:

So, my DVD Recorder has the capability to display jpeg images on CDs and such, however, for some reason, I noticed a few images I saved to a CD weren't showing up at all (a red slashed circled would display for a second before skipping to the next image)... I didn't understand why, they weren't that large, pixelwise or filewise, or anything like that, in fact, they were about the size as other images I had on the CD that had no problems being played on the recorder. I got out the owner's manual to troubleshoot the problem, and saw a note that said if the image is saved as a "progressive" jpeg, it won't play. I didn't even know anything about this stuff; I found this image editing program called IrfanView that actually tells you what kind of image the file is, so I downloaded it, opened those troubled pics, checked on the properties/information, and sure enough, they were all "progressive"... so, I just resaved them by unchecking progressive in the save as menu, replaced them on the CD, popped it in the recorder, and sure enough, they work now.

So yeah. There's something new I learned about jpeg images... not exactly sure how they're saved as progressive, or what makes them progressive, but eh... I guess I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble by bugging Sarge, but I think I've bugged her enough about my technological gaffes to last her an enternity (what with her being an immortal bat/demon/ghost/thing).

Did you know that if you go to any article on Wikipedia, and keep clicking the first hyper-linked word in the article that is not in italics or inside parentheses, and keep repeating this, eventually you'll be taken to the page for "Philosophy"?

This is the closest thread to being relevant but I just realized that buried in the mix of Seether's cover of Careless Whisper is very faint sounding atari bleeps. You can hear them around the 3:12 mark

I actually learned the name of a very famous stock sound effect that's been used countless times in media: "Howie Scream".

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It's actually called the Wilheim Scream. Ben Burtt (famous for his special effects on Star Wars and Jurassic Park) started it, based after a old movie called "Distant Drums", where a guy named 'Wilheim' screams as he gets eaten by an alligator.

Burtt remembered that sound as a kid and found the old stock footage and put it in every one of his movies. After a while, other studios caught on and put the sound in their movies.

EDIT: Apparently, there's ALSO something called the Howie Scream, but it's very recent and it's only used in video games.

EDIT: Apparently, there's ALSO something called the Howie Scream, but it's very recent and it's only used in video games.

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The Howie Scream is heard in the main titles of AAAHH!!! REAL MONSTERS, sometimes it's thrown into CDs of spooky and scary sound effects you can get at Halloween, AFV (AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS) will use it during their "Honorable mentions" montage at the end of the show, usually for a groin hit or something. I'm pretty sure I've heard it on Dexter's Lab a few times.

Not to double-post, but I learned another something new today: how to determine whether or not fall will be colorful or dull.

Apparently, it all depends on what the weather in September is like: if September has mostly sunny and dry weather with dropping temperatures, then the fall foliage will be bright and colorful; however, if September has mostly cloudy and rainy weather with warm and muggy temps, then the fall foliage will be dull and near colorless.

Not to double-post, but I learned another something new today: how to determine whether or not fall will be colorful or dull.

Apparently, it all depends on what the weather in September is like: if September has mostly sunny and dry weather with dropping temperatures, then the fall foliage will be bright and colorful; however, if September has mostly cloudy and rainy weather with warm and muggy temps, then the fall foliage will be dull and near colorless.

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Looks like it's gonna be a dull fall then… Rainy and muggy all month!!

Apparently, the Christopher Lloyd will all know and love, and the Christopher Lloyd who created MODERN FAMILY are NOT the same Christopher Lloyd, and now it seem almost scary that there's more than one Christopher Lloyd.